Mongolia’s path to democratic revolution – The Diplomat
It is December 10, 1989. A Mongolian group sings “The Sound of a Bell” in Sukhbaatar Square – symbolically waking up the Mongolian people and welcoming democracy. At that time, the Soviet Union was on the verge of disintegration. Although Mongolia was never a Soviet republic, the decades-long strong relationship, planned economy and large financial aid abruptly changed, leaving Ulaanbaatar to find its own democratic ways to develop, grow and to thrive.
The collapse of the Soviet Union was indeed one of the objectives of the political, economic and social transformation of Mongolia. Mongolia’s leadership also had to transform. For many decades, Mongolian intellectuals were educated in Marxist-Leninist ideology and policymaking. Between the 1970s and 1980s, the students who would later become the rulers of Mongolia studied abroad in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude. The ideological and practical transformation had to start from the top.
Faced with mounting popular protests and hunger strikes, the leaders of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP) refused to use force and showed themselves open to dialogue and negotiation. In an interview, the last leader of socialist Mongolia, J. Batmunkh said “demonstrations and protests were something new for us. I gave them instructions not to use force under any circumstances. No force should be used. There is no need to use the police or involve the army. The organizers of these movements and demonstrations should be responsible for social order. In fact, these demonstrators, participants and demonstrators are our children.
The resignation of J. Batmunkh’s government put an end to the one-party rule in Mongolia. The emergence of the Mongolian Social Democratic Party and the Mongolian National Democratic Party, together forming the Democratic Union Coalition, ushered Mongolia into a new era of semi-parliamentary system. The first political change in Mongolia took place during the presidential election of 1993. The first democratically elected Mongolian president, Ochirbat Punsalmaa, wrote in his memoirs “Time of Heaven”, that the June 10 edition of the French newspaper, Le Monde said: “Ochirbat spectacularly defeated his opponent, who had been nominated by the Communist Party.”
The singularity of the Mongolian revolutionary process deserves to be underlined. Nothing predestined the country to experience such a development at a time when the Soviet Union had not yet collapsed and so soon after China, a few months earlier, had crushed the revolt of its youth in the square. Tiananmen.
The relative ease of revolution is the result of a convergence between the reformers of the democratic movement and those of the dominant party. At the time, many agreed that the change needed to be profound to pull the country out of the slump of the 1980s, a decade of stagnation. Above all, many saw in the unfolding of events a historic opportunity to break with Soviet tutelage and regain full independence and sovereignty. The events of the winter of 1989-1990 therefore constituted a national revolution. It enabled Mongolia to fully assert its independence and sovereignty.
To fulfill the promises of the revolution, the Mongols gradually designed their own political and economic system. The democratization of Mongolia required a new constitution, with legislative and executive powers to support the country’s new outward-looking economic policies.
Since the adoption of a new constitution – after two years of debate – Mongolian voters have agreed that power should be distributed among the three branches of the state: the Speaker of Parliament, the Prime Minister and the President. Initially thought of as a semi-presidential system, the Mongolian political system gradually evolved into a full-fledged parliamentary system following two constitutional amendments adopted in 2000 and 2019. The choice of a parliamentary system was presented at the time as a tool to limit foreign influence on the Mongolian decision-making process.
The collapse of the Soviet Union hampered the Mongolian economy, foreign investment and common projects in general. The abrupt change resulted in sudden privatization, price liberalization and the sale of all livestock. Moreover, Mongolia already faced a large foreign debt to the Soviet Union.
Former Prime Minister P. Jasrai wrote: “In view of Mongolia’s historical turning points, Mongolia has become a member of COMECON [from the 1960s to the 1990s]. Because Mongolia was one of the weakest members of the economic group – in order to engage economically with others – it sought to attract foreign investment by receiving grants, loans on favorable terms and creating joint ventures. Although the construction project was not trivial, in the end, the amount of foreign debt increased enormously.
In order for Mongolia to rejuvenate its economy according to the capitalist school of thought, policy makers abandoned the planned economy. Moreover, to promote a new era of economic growth, the Mongolian authorities have chosen a radical transition process based on the “shock theory”.
A gradual transition was difficult to envisage because of the structural dependence on the Soviet economy and the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) of the USSR. The transition led to a violent economic crisis.
Mongolia’s GDP did not reach its 1989 level until 2003, while the amount of foreign trade recovered to its 1989 level in 2004. Unemployment and hyperinflation created social difficulties that culminated in the introduction of ration tickets in the early 1990s. Due to the severity of the crisis, the years after 1990 are considered a “lost decade” for Mongolia. Policy makers needed to capitalize on Mongolia’s comparative advantages, primarily the country’s natural resources, coal and copper.
Moreover, at the end of the Batmunkh era, most COMECON countries faced similar economic challenges. It also meant competition for financial and economic resources. Mongolia has sought to strengthen its already established diplomatic ties, focusing primarily on economic issues and seeking aid from donors beyond Russia and China. Mongolia viewed the four “Asian Tiger” economies – South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan – as examples of successful development models. Former Prime Minister Jasrai Puntsag wrote in his memoirs: “If you said that Batmunkh only understood this in 1989, that would be a big mistake. In 1985, there was a new direction in Mongolia’s foreign policy. These years, we have undertaken to strengthen Mongolia’s relations with Japan, China and establish bilateral relations with South Korea. We aim to strengthen economy and trade, science and technology, and development in the humanities sector. »
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the sudden democratic revolution deprived Mongolia of the security guarantees offered by the Soviet Union and forced it to ensure its own independence and the protection of its sovereignty. This situation has led the authorities to formalize an innovative and original strategic response that plays on the democratic specificity claimed by Mongolia. This strategic approach is based on three priorities. Mongolian diplomatic efforts are primarily aimed at developing friendly relations with its two geographical neighbours, Russia and China. Mongolian diplomacy then focused on developing and strengthening privileged relations with democratic and developed countries, its “third neighbours”. In this pursuit, Mongolia has managed to forge strategic partnerships with Russia and China, as well as neighboring third countries in the world, in addition to its international peacekeeping operations.
As Mongolia recently celebrated the 110th anniversary of the establishment of Mongolian diplomacy, the country is moving forward with a robust foreign policy that engages the country in regional and global affairs. The collapse of the Soviet Union transformed Mongolia, but Mongolia’s peaceful democratic revolution remains the cornerstone of Mongolia’s multi-pillar foreign policy approach that protects Mongolia’s national interests.